# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S15
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 15 —

such sin, such a lack of truly Christian upbringing of children, such
disregard for upright servants of Christ and such ingratitude toward
them, such a lack of brotherly love and of the brotherly correction that
necessarily follows from it, and finally such an ever-more-frequent
occurrence of gross offenses, that the faithful servants among us for
the most part carry out their office with sighing, and all the upright
children of God among us lie weeping and lamenting before God, and the
whole congregation of the saints and elect hidden among us must look
into the future with fear and trembling.

What then shall we do, venerable and beloved fathers and brothers in
the Lord, in view of these sad phenomena in our midst? —

The first thing to which the corruption of life breaking out among us
alongside pure doctrine summons us is without doubt this: that all of
us who have an eye that sees this corruption should not, in fleshly
security, presume upon the pure doctrine still current among us by
God's grace. Pure doctrine indeed is and remains the chief treasure of
a church body. Luther rightly says: "Doctrine is heaven, life is
earth." (VIII, 2661.) But the greater the grace God grants a church
body with pure, sound, clear doctrine, the more terrible it is when
that grace is received in vain; all the more does the word of the Lord
apply to it: "The servant who knew his lord's will, and did not
prepare himself, nor act according to his will, shall be beaten with
many stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be
required; and to whom much is committed, of him they will ask the
more." (Luke 12:47–48.) Luther further says: "The Church, although she
is weak in sins, is nevertheless not un-Christian, but Christian in
the Word; she indeed sins, but she confesses and knows the Word and
does not deny it. Therefore one should not reject those who thus
praise and confess the Word, even though they do not appear or shine
with wondrous holiness." (X, 1871.) But when a church has the pure
Word, yet it is no longer her highest treasure, no longer dearer to
her than many thousand pieces of gold and silver, no longer sweeter
than honey and the honeycomb; when she begins, even in reading,
hearing, and confessing it, to grow slack and lukewarm, and, though
not with the mouth, yet in her heart to say, "Our soul loatheth this
worthless food" (Num. 21:5): then such a church has nothing else to
expect than that the pure Word will prove itself with her too to be
"a passing rain shower," "which does not come again where it has once
been." Luther therefore rightly wrote in the year 1531: "If any danger
threatens our doctrine, it threatens it from the vice of laziness and
of satiety. The heretics and sects, although they do great harm,
nevertheless accomplish this, that they drive us to a more zealous
searching of the holy